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Crispus Attucks dies at the Boston Massacre
Crispus was the first death of the American Revolution. He was a fugitive slave that escaped from his master -
Fugitive Slave Law
Under the Fugitive Slave Law, an accused runaway was to stand trial in front of a special commissioner, not a judge or a jury, and that the commissioner was to be paid $10 if a fugitive was returned to slavery but only $5 if the fugitive was freed. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Rebel slaves killed anywhere from 55 to 65 people, the highest number of fatalities caused by any slave uprising in the American South. The rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months afterwards. -
The Amistad Revolt
A slave escaped from his shackles and released all of the other Africans. They killed most of the crew and forced Montez and Ruiz to return the ship to Africa. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The antislavery advocates gained the admission of California as a free state, and the prohibition of slave-trading in the District of Columbia. The slavery party received concessions with regard to slaveholding in Texas and the passage of this law. -
Scott Vs. Sanford
Slaves are not citizens of the US so they can't sue in federal court. -
John Brown's Raid
Was an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's raid, accompanied by 20 men in his party, was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. -
SC Secedes from the Union
They were the first state to secede and they later formed the Confedercy. The first shots were fired at Charleston. -
Emancipation Proclamation
It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion. -
End of Civil War
Includes important battles, skirmishes, raids and other events of 1865. These led to additional Confederate surrenders, key Confederate captures, and disbandments of Confederate military units that occurred after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865. -
Assassination of Lincoln
Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth. -
13th Amendment
United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
14th Amendment
The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". -
Plessy Vs. Ferguson
Court ruled "separate but equal". -
Phoenix Election Riot
Over a dozen of of prominent black leaders were murdered and hundreds were injured by a white mob. -
Wilmington, NC Riot
The Wilmington Race riots took place after the democratic party achieved victory in the election of 1898,giving them control of the majority of legislature. -
Rosewood Massacre
A racially-motivated mob atrocity in Florida during January 1-7, 1923. In the violence at least six blacks and two whites were killed, and the town of Rosewood was abandoned and destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot. -
Scottsboro Boys
Several white teenagers jumped off the train and reported to the sheriff that they had been attacked by a group of black teenagers. The sheriff deputized a posse, stopped and searched the train at Paint Rock, Alabama, arrested the black teenagers, and found two young white women who accused the teenagers of rape. -
McLaurin V. Oklahoma
The Supreme Court, in one of two education desegregation decision that day, struck another blow to segregated education when it declared an Oklahoma statute unconstitutional, arguing that the differential treatment shown to an African American student was itself a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. -
Sweatt V. Texas
The Supreme Court dealt a significant blow to segregated education when it ruled that the exclusion of an African American student from the University of Texas Law School was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. -
Brown Vs. Board
United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation -
Death of Emmett Till
Brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants--the white woman's husband and her brother--made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. -
Little Rock 9
Nine African-American students were enrolled into Little Rock Central High School in 1957. They had marshalls to escort them around school. -
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Bridges integrated William Frantz Elementary School on Nov. 14, 1960, becoming the public face of desegregation in New Orleans at the age of 6. -
James Meredith
In 1962, he was the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi. -
March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. -
16th Street Church Bombing
On September 15, a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama–a church with a predominantly black congregation that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. -
March on Selma
It was marches and protests held in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act
The Act allowed for a mass enfranchisement of racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. -
Watts Riots
Was a race riot that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965. The six-day unrest resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests, and over $40 million in property damage. -
Orangeburg Massacre
At 10:33 p.m. on the night of February 8, 1968, eight to 10 seconds of police gunfire left three young black men dying and 27 wounded on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. -
Assassination of MLK Jr.
King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. King was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. -
Angela Davis gets Arrested
Angela Davis was arrested in New York by the FBI on Tuesday October 13th 1970. She had been on the run for over two months, crossing the country from Los Angeles to New York. -
Congressional Hearings end for Tuskegee Study
A study for black males to see how many had Syphilis, 600 men were tested and 399 had the disease. The study went on for 40 years. -
Lucy was found.
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. -
Roots
The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery. -
Rodney King gets Beaten
He was an African-American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles police officers, following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local witness, George Holliday, videotaped much of it from his balcony. -
Barack Obama
He became the 44th President of the US. He is also the first black president in history.
